by Anya Peters
I hadn’t intended letting him know how bad things had got, but I ended up telling him about Craig and why I had moved out of London, and about the depression that had set in.
All the emotion of the last two years came pouring out and we had the most tearful, emotional, father-daughter conversation I ever remember having with him. He was his old reassuring self and I felt like that little girl again, protected from the world by his warmth. At one point—I think only half-joking—he even offered to send someone over from Ireland to kill Craig. My father was standing up for me! I was overwhelmed. It was wonderful not to be alone any more.
I think this was what made me believe Brendan so easily when he told me again about the money he had intended to set aside for me since he couldn’t include me in his will. He told me he could give it to me now instead, as there was a deal he was doing that none of his family knew about. The amount was a bit more than I had lent Neil, so I’d be able to pay off my debts and the loans I’d taken out, and also have enough for a breathing space so I could start putting my life back together.
At any other time I would have been more sceptical. But, totally exhausted, I just wanted someone else to take charge, to make decisions for me. And, despite how old I was by then, the thought of Brendan coming through for me, being the kind of father he had been to his other daughters, was something I so much wanted to happen.
Perhaps alarm bells should have rung when he soon told me there was a delay, that there was nothing he could do about it, and that I’d have to wait. He suggested I go away for a few weeks,‘Three or four, it definitely won’t be longer than that.’
‘How definite are you?’ I asked, remembering all the times he’d let me down over the years, all the complicated ways he used to pay my school fees so that his family didn’t find out, using deals they knew nothing about, deals that always seemed to go wrong, fall through or be delayed. ‘You’ve said that before,’ I reminded him.
‘This time I am 99.9 per cent sure of it!’
He told me to wait a while before I made a decision about where to go next, encouraging me to have a rest and to wait until the money came through before I pinned myself down to living in a part of the country I might not want to be in.
In a way I wished I wasn’t relying on him, but in the state I was in it was hard to walk away. It was as much about having my trust restored; knowing that‘my father’ was coming through for me. I was giving up on life and he was taking care of me. He was my Dad, the only family in the world I had left, even though nobody could know about that. His suggestion I go away for a while was tempting—what I needed more than anything was a rest…a long, long rest so I could let down my guard and allow my scars to heal.
Looking back, what I should have done was use the last of my money and overdraft limit to get another tenancy and job in the area, or somewhere else outside London where rents were cheaper. But I no longer had the energy to pull my life together. It felt like one fight too many. Instead, I put my belongings in storage, loaded up the car and took Brendan’s advice to have a break from everything.
I overloaded the car with boxes, suitcases and bags. I knew I would probably never even open most of them, but I wasn’t sure when I would get my stuff out of storage, so I took far more than I needed. The thought of having no home to return to was scary, like jumping off a cliff, but I was convinced Brendan would come through for me this time.
I couldn’t make even the simplest decisions: not even about where to go for those few weeks. Brendan reminded me of a holiday in north Norfolk I’d often told him about, and for want of any other ideas, on my last night in Newcastle I decided to head there.
Next day I signed the inventory of my flat with the lettings agent, handed the keys back and pulled the door firmly shut, having no idea that it would be more than eighteen months before I had another door of my own to lock behind me.
Chapter 37
That night, feeling tired and apprehensive at putting all my trust in Brendan again, I booked into a bed and breakfast by a windmill in one of the small coastal villages of north Norfolk. It was February and out of season, and at the tourist office the following morning I rented a cottage for a week near Holkham at a cheap rate. Utterly drained, I did nothing for the first few days but lie on the bed for hours on end, staring out at the sky and the huge, ravenous seagulls that circled noisily above. At night I lay in the dark, listening to the wind battering the building. I began to feel calmer and safer than I had for months, and when I discovered the cottage was empty for another week I extended my stay, curling up on the overstuffed pumpkin-coloured sofa downstairs, staring into nothing and planning how to put my life back together.
After three weeks I was feeling stronger than I had in ages. The depression was beginning to lift. But when Brendan called to tell me the deal was being held up again, my world seemed to collapse, and I was reminded of all those times he’d let me down in the past. What Craig had said about him kept coming into my head. But he sounded as dejected as I did and I knew he felt bad about letting me down. He said he was even more certain that the deal would come through now, and told me to sit tight, that it couldn’t be more than another month or so. A month felt like an age away then. In the meantime, because he knew my money was about to run out, he arranged to help me out while I waited; he was able to send me some money every fortnight. It wasn’t much, but together with running up credit card debt it would see me through if I did wait.
Sitting alone in that cottage in Norfolk I couldn’t think straight. The last of the deposit the letting agents had refunded to my account was almost gone, and I wouldn’t be able to get another bank loan now I wasn’t working and without an address. Brendan wouldn’t tell me much about the deal but he was still saying the money would definitely come through.‘It could be any day,’ he said almost every time I phoned. In the end I simply didn’t have the energy not to believe him.
What followed were the most barren months of my life. I decided to leave Norfolk but carry on waiting for another few weeks, trusting what Brendan was telling me. Depression had taken hold again and I couldn’t think what else to do.
I had no energy for the simplest things, and ended up dragging myself from place to place around the country, waiting; living on credit in places I didn’t want to be in. I slept a lot; sometimes for whole days. My life had absolutely no focus or purpose. Everything was‘on hold’, even my emotions.
Week rolled into week and delay followed delay. Three months later I found myself still waiting: still travelling around the country, driving aimlessly up and down the motorways, staying in holiday homes, B & Bs and hotels everywhere from Carlisle to Cornwall, completely exhausted and lost. I felt if I could just reach out my arm and hold back time for a moment while I tried to make a decision, everything would be okay; but as it was I was disorientated and alienated, and overwhelmed by the smallest decisions. Sometimes, curled up in yet another bed at night, feeling like I’d never belong anywhere, Craig’s words would come into my head—‘those who don’t belong, belong to each other’—and I had to force myself not to think of going back to him. It would be utter madness, but this felt like madness too.
I’ve no idea what a doctor would have said about my condition. Was it a breakdown? Had my GP’s diagnosis of clinical depression turned into something worse? All I know is that Brendan’s promise that the deal was ‘about to come through’ dominated my mind, until hanging on to that belief was all that kept me going.
Eventually all the towns and villages began to look the same. I lost track of where I was. Late one evening at the end of a week staying in yet another rented place, driving to the garage for milk, I froze at the first main roundabout, unable to remember which exit to take. I had driven that way every day for almost a week, but suddenly every roundabout and the directions to every garage in every town and village I had visited merged in my head. For a few blank minutes, I had no idea which place I was in.
My life was falling apart and I wa
s not taking responsibility for it. Every morning I woke exhausted, feeling like I hadn’t slept a wink. I never seemed to have enough energy to get me through the day. Depression was clouding everything. I was living on credit and had turned my back on any support system that might have been there for me, telling myself it was a temporary blip, not realising it was about to become a landslide.
One day I found myself in the queue at the tollgates into Wales. I panicked, unable to decide whether to go through. Cars had pulled up behind me and soon it was impossible to reverse. A rusty, white camper van stalled in front of me, and in those few seconds I made the decision not to go through: Wales was too far from any possible ways out of my situation, it seemed at that moment. When I reached the booth I told the man that I was lost and hadn’t intended going through.
‘Where are you headed?’ he asked.
My mind went blank. I wasn’t headed anywhere.
‘Glasgow,’ I said. It was the only place far enough away from there that came to mind.
‘Glasgow?’ He raised both eyebrows and took off his glasses.‘You’re a fair way from Glasgow here.’
He pushed his way noisily out of the booth and guided me importantly through the double row of orange cones and out onto a slip road that would take me around the back and then over the motorway bridge to join the traffic going north.
Instead, when I was sure my green Rover was out of sight, I looked for the route south and drove towards Bristol and then down to Brighton. I wasn’t sure why, except that Brighton was close to London, so maybe I was feeling my way slowly back there. Craig might still be there but London was the place where the jobs and the opportunities were most likely to be, and the only place that had ever felt like home to me.
I knew Brighton a bit too. Brendan often used to drive me down there for days out when I was a child, and years later I used to meet friends from work on the beach for picnics after the London to Brighton cycle ride. I also liked it because it was a place where people came and went, a place where I could be anonymous while I continued to ‘wait’—although I had almost forgotten what I was waiting for by that stage. I was just stuck in a week-by-week, dependent relationship with Brendan.
I liked the dilapidated grandeur of the big white Regency houses along the seafront too. It seemed to reflect my life and spirit, falling apart just like those buildings, or like the charred and ruined West Pier looking like a giant, half-crushed insect struggling to crawl out into the sea.
There were all types of people in Brighton too. It was a place full of both fortune and misfortune, a very tolerant, inclusive town. Because it was summer by then it would be teeming with visitors at the weekends too. I thought I could blend in there, go unnoticed for a while; maybe get my head clear, and find a job and another tenancy in order to put this time behind me. Or so I told myself.
Chapter 38
Wandering the streets, beachfront and narrow lanes of Brighton, jostling with crowds of happy tourists and purposeful shoppers, I felt like I had fallen off the edge of life and didn’t know where or how to jump back on. It was soon high season and even the cheapest places were too expensive, especially at weekends. But I had no choice but to use my last credit card to pay for rooms in the cheapest B & Bs I could find. I couldn’t see a choice. I had to put my head down somewhere at night, and had nowhere else to go.
One day the fortnightly money Brendan was sending didn’t arrive on time. I went to a telephone booth down on the seafront to leave a message but, amazingly, this time his phone was on. He said the money would be there the following day, but that the next payment would be the last he could send. He wasn’t going to be able to send anything after that. Something had gone wrong with all his plans. In a way I was relieved that he was finally admitting it, but I was exhausted, frightened and angry too—with him, but mostly with myself for having relied on him.
Standing in the phone box in Brighton, the sky darkening, and with absolutely no money left and nowhere to go, I wondered what would happen to me now.
’I’m sorry,’ he whispered into the phone and I knew his wife or one of his family had come into the room, ‘there’s no more I can do.’
He put the receiver down and I was left listening to the dial tone and staring incredulously out at an angry, metallic-grey sea smashing against the black, ruined West Pier. I looked blankly along the promenade at all the people hurrying home through the drizzle but my legs wouldn’t move. How had I allowed myself to get into such an impossible position?
Chapter 39
Istayed in the phone box going through the job ads in the local paper. I’d been phoning all week but most of them had already gone, or I didn’t have the required experience. I rummaged in my bag for the section I’d ripped from a magazine months ago, and called the domestic employment agencies in the boxed ads again. Surely I could get some kind of live-in job. I had to.
’Remind us what kind of work you are after again,’ one of the women asked. I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice but admitted I might consider anything. ‘You’re not really qualified and our clients are very particular, and anyway it’s coming up to August. August is always a quiet month. Try again in September.’
’Okay,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Thank you, I will.’
’Hold one moment,’ one woman at an agency I hadn’t called before said.
I watched the coin meter ticking down on the phone and shook my bag, scraping about at the bottom for more coins. Sweat was pouring down my face and arms as she went off to check with her colleague about some recent details they’d had in. ‘Yes, it’s a governess position, for a Russian family, working between Moscow and London. A boy of seven. Would you consider that?’
Would I consider it? I’d leap at it. I imagined all I’d get at that stage would be cleaner or carer jobs. I remembered how adorable boys of seven were, cheeky, curious and sweet. ‘Yes,’ I said, shoving the last coins into the slot, trying to sound casual, ‘I’d definitely like some more details about it anyway.’ She asked for my address to send details and an application form to, and I told her what I’d been telling all the others for months—that I was on holiday—and asked her to email them. She sounded suspicious but said she would.
’How soon do they want somebody?’ I asked.
’As soon as possible, as far as I know.’
’Good.’
’Would that suit then?’
’Yes, it could do,’ I said, trying to sound less desperate than I was.
’How soon could you start then?’
And then I messed it up, showing my desperation by saying, ‘Straight away…I could be there by tomorrow really, if they needed me to.’
She said she’d email me details, but I never heard from her again.
I walked in a daze back to the B & B in Kemptown that I was booked into for another night. I couldn’t believe Brendan was just stopping the money like that. I’d dreaded that from the beginning—of riding out all those delays, and then it all stopping abruptly when my own money had been used up and I was totally dependent. He’d always assured me that it wouldn’t happen like that. But now it had, and I couldn’t face dealing with it. I was too tired and shaky, ready to crack.
I stood aside for the owner as she passed me on the stairs with an armful of folded pink towels, smiling back at her as if nothing had happened. All my life that had been one of the most important things: not to let anyone know there was anything wrong or that I needed anything at all. I didn’t know how to drop the charade now, even though I’d clearly needed help desperately for months.
I sprinkled drops of lemon essential oil onto my sponge and dropped it onto the shower tray, turning the shower to the hottest setting bearable. Sitting on the floor of the shower with my knees up and the scalding water pouring over me, I took long, deep breaths of the lemon steam to try to revive myself. Before seven o’clock, my skin red raw, I climbed under the covers. I lay staring up at the TV attached to a wall bracket in the cor
ner of the room, without a thought or a plan in my head, as if nothing had happened. When my headache got worse I was frightened of turning off the sound and being forced to listen to my own thoughts. I rolled over and read Craig’s coffee-ringed copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which I’d discovered the day before, jammed down into the side pocket of one of the suitcases in the boot. I couldn’t face thinking about what was going to happen next. There was no one to turn to. I knew I’d have no choice but to go to the authorities for help.
Eventually I lay there, trying to get to sleep, staring up at the wallpaper with its big, shiny, lilac flowers, worn and peeling in places. It was a single bed crammed between the wall and a large, old-fashioned wardrobe. I don’t remember much else about that bed or how I slept. If I’d known that it would be the last bed I would sleep in for nine months then I might have taken more notice.
Chapter 40
The first night of sleeping in the car was a mistake. I didn’t plan it. I still had the last of the fortnightly money left, and Brendan had said he would be sending it one more time, plus I hadn’t quite reached the limit on the last credit card. I probably had enough for a week or so in a B & B. But after I checked out of that last one I never went off to look for another. I was vaguely thinking of going back to London and throwing myself at the mercy of one of the employment agencies I’d been ringing, hoping that if they interviewed me in person they’d see how trustworthy and capable I was and find me some kind of live-in job. But by the evening I still hadn’t plucked up the courage to leave Brighton.
I’d been sitting in the car unable to stop crying and wanted to wait until the puffiness in my face and eyes had gone down before I went off to find another B & B. I bought some chips from the stall on the pier, soaked them in vinegar, parked on the seafront and sat in the car to eat them, as I had done most nights, staring out at the sea.
